On hearing that Antonia Labia, who I knew as PR person for The Mount Nelson Hotel, was leaving PR to study interior design, I thought her a little dilettantish.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Today, as the creative energy behind Casa Labia, she has exquisitely restored her ancestral Muizenberg residence and created a cultural centre that is available for hire as an event’s space. If ever someone has combined interior design and public relations disciplines to good effect, she has.
The place is beautiful. There are great works of art collected by the first Count Natale Labia and his wife Ida, daughter of Sir JB Robinson. Once inside, one is transported to 18th century Venice in a lavish yet tasteful environment.
The food is tasty too, although we have come to expect nothing less of Judy Badenhorst, who has been making great food since the Old Cape Farm Stall and River Café days. I never got to the Lucky Store in Stellenbosch, her most recent foray, but always heard delicious things about it.
Judy now heads the Casa Labia Café, open for breakfast and lunch. The menu is local but inspired by Italy. So for breakfast you could get a cheese and tomato toasted sandwich for R35 or eggs Pavarotti, on toasted ciabatta with red pepper, lemon and butter sauce and crispy Pancetta for R62. Coffee is good and a reasonable R14 for a flat white.
The chalk-board menu changes daily but there are about nine lunch dishes, ranging in price from R35 to R65 that will change as the seasons do. I started with the warm spiced chickpea, lentil and feta salad. I like spicy and hot food and was pleasantly surprised by the growing burn inside my mouth from the roasted chillies and cardamom. I’d leave out the lettuce leaves, which begin to wilt under the heat of the other ingredients.
Their fish stew (R85) is the sort of dish that I think about just as I’m nodding off to sleep at night. It is a conundrum to fathom because it is hearty and yet tastes light and fresh and while it is a stew with a lot of broth, the calamari, line fish (which they call sailfish), and mussels each taste the way they do individually and yet also tastes delicious as a collective.
I have avoided using the word Umami when writing about food while so many food writers seem to trot it out with the alacrity that one accepts another glass of expensive wine.
I’ve avoided it because I have previously found other words to describe what the Japanese consider the most important taste descriptor that is greater than the sum of its parts and tickles those savoury taste buds. Judy’s fish stew is Umami.
JP ordered the roasted chicken pie, a Badenhorst trademark dish since The Old Cape Farm Stall days. Yes, it has been gussied up to suit its more elegant surroundings with roasted butternut and green beans, but Badenhorst has still manages to intensify simple flavour in such a way that eating the pie crust becomes a soft and flaky respite.
As JP forwent a starter in favour of dessert, he ordered the rich and decadent croissant and butter pudding which had his eyes rolling back in his head from pleasure.
Everything I cherish about good eating is available at Casa Labia Café: simple dishes where quality ingredients are respectfully cooked and flavours harmoniously combined, served in elegant surroundings by excellent staff. I have only one gripe, and a pernickety one at that: music in such a grand space should not be coming from a boom-box on the floor.
www.casalabia.co.za 021-788-6068. 192 Main Road, Muizenberg.